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Newell Normand: LaVar Ball wants to blame everyone else

December 06, 2017 - 4:11 pm

Is LaVar Ball pulling his son from the UCLA basketball team sending the right message or is it the right thing? Check out Newell Normand's HOT TAKES:

These overseas trips are a huge opportunity for the student-athletes. While they're over there, these young men are representing not only their university but their country. Unfortunately, some of them engaged in shoplifting; and the Chinese take that real serious.

The players who were arrested, including LiAngelo Ball, were in jail for eight days. President Trump helped secure their release and return to the United State. And then this whole diatribe starts, and LaVar Ball seemed to want to blame everyone else.

A wise person once told me that good leaders know when to say no. One of the ironies here is that LaVar Ball went after the coach, saying that the kids were unsupervised and the coach didn't do this and didn't do that. LaVarr tried to create a smokescreen and shift the blame to the coaches. I really thought the coach handled it very well.

These kids are 17 or 18 years old. The coach didn't just turn them loose. The players had a 90 minute window to walk in a limited area around the hotel. If you don't know around 17 or 18 what's right and wrong, shame on you; shame on your high school; shame on your parents; and shame on UCLA.

LaVar Ball is, in my aspects, is revered by many kids coming up playing basketball. He's outspoken; he gets a lot of media coverage on behalf of his three children. He has a certain amount of influence when it comes to these kids who look up to him. It's important to talk about this topic.

I've coached kids before, and I've seen some parents act a certain way. I always felt bad for the kids because they can't control their parents. We all try to look out for the best interests of our kids, but there has to be balance.